I don't know why, but this is really starting to bug me. Grr...


1. This is how you make a link: < a href="http://www.url.com/" > Hi, I'm a link! < /a >

2. This is how you make an LJ cut: < lj-cut text="Hi, I'm a cut tag!" > TL;DR < /lj-cut >

Please pay attention now, because this seems to be part most people are missing...

3. This is how you make a FAKE cut: ( < a href="http://www.url.com/" > Hi, I'm a fake cut! < /a > )


Please note that a fake cut is, by definition, not a real LJ cut. It is a link to an outside website that merely looks like a cut tag. It looks that way because you have deliberately placed brackets (or parentheses, whatever you wanna call 'em) around your link to replicate the LJ cut's appearance. An LJ cut is not a link, as it does not actually lead anywhere different. It simply hides text that is too long or too big within the same post so that it does not take up so much space on your friends' flists. It's a courtesy thing. The link is a functional thing. A fake cut made out of a link? Is a tricksy but fun thing. Three different things, three different purposes.

Allow me to demonstrate:

1. Hi, I'm a link!

2. ( Hi, I'm a cut tag! )

3. ( Hi, I'm a fake cut! )

...


Thankfully, most of my flist seems to have this stuff down pat. You guys are awesome! But I've been seeing this mistake being made all over LJ, over and over again. It's been popping up more and more than ever lately for some reason too. It's always been around, but it never used to bother me. Now I just can't seem to get past it. It's gotten to the point where I've refused to click on links or cuts that were mislabeled. It's just... aggravating. Grr, argh.

Anyway, thanks for being great you guys! At least my own flist is a pet peeve free zone. Yay!

ETA: I only wrote this here so that I would not be tempted to write it in comments to random strangers. I can bitch in my own LJ, but bitching elsewhere would be, well, rude at the very least and potentially wank-worthy at worst. Alas, I know myself well enough to know that if I see it just one more time, I'm liable to freak out and do something stupid. Bitching here gets it out of my system before I make an ass of myself publicly. Always a good thing to avoid if possible. *g*

Got an email today for a new archive called Fan Nation asking for story submissions. Turns out it's an archive for former FanLib members to keep the dream alive.

FanLib. Mmm, let me think... now wasn't that the site created by corporate moguls so they could own, market and capitalize off of gullible fanfiction authors? A site which was eventually driven under because the rest of fandom didn't so much like being exploited and engaged in a all-out war to spread the word to the (mostly) newbie authors who'd been suckered in? A site which eventually collapsed under the wave of ill-will, boycotting, and bad press?

And then, if rumour has it, was sold to Disney and consigned to obscurity? So much so that it was even struck from the Wayback Machine's records?

Yup.

Ah, MonsterMoofie? Sorry, but I think I'm going to have to decline your generous offer. Good luck finding idiots though!

...

For more information on FanLib's illustrious history, check out life_wo_fanlib.

(I haven't seen anything there about this latest scheme yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. There's no way I'm the first to be targeted, especially since I never posted at FanLib either. I'm just surprised that they've already rounded up over 100 authors for their new site! Damn!)

I went ice skating tonight for the first time in over a decade...

...and I only fell six times!

Go me! \o/

I'll probably be paying for this tomorrow though. Oh, well, it was fun! :P

The news just announced that NORAD's "Captain Carter" is in charge of tracking Santa this year.

Heh, I am easily amused. XD

It is -45C outside and the furnace is making strange sounds.

::crosses fingers::

Please don't die on me. Please don't die on me. Please don't die on me!

Whoo! Just hit 69 icons! Only 126 more to go!

I figure this Angel/Spike quickie icon is perfectly appropriate for the 69th slot, y/n? ;P

Okay, so the library gets really quiet around the holidays and to stave off boredom the bosses have given us this quiz to figure out. There's chocolate (of the lovely Bernard Callebaut variety, yum!) in the offering as a prize to the first person who can complete it correctly.

Hence, I decided to cheat. ;P


Instructions: Below is a list of traditional and modern Christmas songs -- with a twist. Their titles have been rewritten. Your job is to decipher which song each one is based on the clue provided. Some songs may appear twice.

Ex: "Decorate The Entry-Ways" = "Deck The Halls"

( HELP ME!!! )

Note to self: nomadicwriter makes the BEST and most HILARIOUS Stargate icons evar!

*gakks like mad*

Good lord, I'm only using 48 out of 195 icons?!?!?!?!

At this rate, I could have an icon not only for every fandom I'm in (88 at last count, btw) but I could have individuals icons for every pairing and/or favorite character too. \o/

Of course, I personally suck at making icons, but there are plenty of icon-sharing communities out there. I'll have to trawl for fun goodies! (Oh, the hardship... *eg*)

Anyway, new Moon's moon icon is GIPed.

A stormfront over BC meant Calgary (Alberta, next province over, other side of mountains) got 17 cm -- 7 inches, to my American friends -- of snow dumped on us in about 5 hours.

I had to work today. Naturally. ::rolls eyes::

The drive to work was actually the worst, when there was probably only a couple of centimetres of snow on the ground, but it was falling hard and people were being stupid and driving too fast. Lots of cars spun out all over the place. I drove the whole way at 30kph, never exceeded 35 kph, and never once allowed my car to come to a complete stop. (I rolled, creeped really, up to a few red lights 'til they turned green.)

The hills especially were scary, because if someone stopped on one they lost all traction and were dead in the water snow. There are at least three major, steep hills on my route. On one of them, I had to play DodgeCar like mad because there were vehicles stuck everywhere in all three lanes. That was fun, let me tell ya.

Then, after work, I got to drive home. Luckily, by then the snowplows had managed to get to the busiest roads, so it was only icily slippery instead of ice mired under a blanket of slush. I was smarter driving on my way home though and chose a longer but gentler route with only little sloping hills. Still didn't do more than 50kph all the way home. Played DodgeCar twice more because stupid people are still stupid five hours later.

Still, I made it safe and sound. I did not slip or fishtail once. And while part of that is due to my good driving skills, the rest is due to my wonderful new car. She may be little, but she's got excellent control and amazing traction!

I love my new car! It did me proud today! It even got me through the two-foot snowdrift in front of my driveway so I could park 'er back in the garage. The old bucket-o-bolts would have never have been able to do that!

::pats Focus::

Good car. Nice car. You did good today. Have a nice night's sleep, we don't have to go out again until tomorrow afternoon. And by then, hopefully the roads will be clear again.

Love you! ::kiss, kiss::

I have to admit, tonight was a great night to be at the Library!

For my entire shift, all of our servers were down. We had no computers (no catalogue, no internet, no email, etc...) and even no phone! We literally could not do any of the usual tasks. But we were still open, and dang it, we were gonna stay that way!

Our circulation staff were signing out books by hand, recording barcodes on paper. Our bookdrop staff couldn't check anything in, so were just making sure all the CDs and DVDs had all their parts. All of our support staff, who are normally completely overworked, had nothing to do at all so just went out shelf-reading to tidy up.

As for we reference staff, we mostly sat around chatting and looking pretty. ;D Oh, occasionally someone would actually come up and ask us something, and then we'd be all, uh....? It got to the point where we just gave up trying to be serious and were having fun with it. We'd yell at each other all the way across the floor: "Do you know where the insurance books are?" or "Anybody remember who wrote the Judy Moody series?"

Sometimes we'd even get really lucky, and some over-hearing PATRON would tell us the answer! LOL!

Dude, it was great! The best part, not a single person who came in tonight reacted badly about the technical issues. Everyone was wonderful! People stood in line at Check-Out for up to 20 minutes at a time, but not a soul complained. Others lost work they'd been doing on the computers and just shrugged it off. Even the staff were just laughing about it all.

Man, it was the best night ever!

Of course, tomorrow is going to be an absolute gong show while everyone scrambles to make up for the lost time -- all the barcodes to be entered into the system, the ridiculously HUGE backload of items to be returned...! Damn, it'll be a mess! ::cringes::

Thankfully, I don't have to go in until late afternoon. Hopefully, the worst of the recovery will be over by then. Mwuahahaha! *eg*

After finally seeing the new X-Files movie (stupid, boring plot but good Mulder/Scully character and relationship development, so I'll grudgingly call it a win) I've been sucked back into the XF fandom like I haven't been since the early years. Oh, don't get me wrong, I've never really left the fandom... I've always gone back and reread my favourite stories, as well as a few exceptional and highly recommended new ones, not too mention all the crossovers that pop up in my other fandoms. But it's been well over a decade since I've immersed my self so deeply into the X-Files groove.

You know what? It's surprising how little things have actually changed! Some of the authors I read back in the 90s are even still around. Oh, many of them seem to have done the same as me and moved on to other fandoms for a few years in between, but there are so many familiar names writing right now that it almost feels like I never left. (And a few of them -- Vickie Mosely, for one -- seem never to have left at all!)

I'm just feeling the biggest nostalgia for this old classic show right now. It was the fandom that got me started, the first show I ever read or wrote fanfic for. Heck, it was the very reason I got out on the internet in the first place! My family got our first internet connection in July 1996, but except for a few chatroom sessions (including one especially nasty argument over which country was better, Canada vs USA) which were mostly driven by my sister at that, I wasn't really interested in the computer until I discovered there were other X-Philes out there, and OMG, they were writing stories about my favourite show!

Within weeks, I'd become entrenched in my first fandom, and even started sending feedback to authors of the stories I'd especially liked. Luckily for me, one of the authors I met in those early months would become one of the best and most influential (Hi, redwolfoz!) friends of my life. Someone who would not only get me started in the realm of fandom, but who would stick by me ever since -- something not even anyone in real life (family notwithstanding) has ever managed.

Now, I'm feeling such a sense of nostalgia I'm back to feeling like the giddy, foolish little girl I was when I first discovered the world of fanfiction at my fingertips. I've been rewatching my old favourite episodes, and seeing a few from the later Doggett-years for the first time. And I've been steadily working my way backwards (by date) through the Gossamer archives for fic. There's so much I've missed! So much that's brand new to me (even if it's years old now) that I feel like I could do this for weeks and not tire of it.

God, could I have really forgotten how much I loved this show? Those characters? How I would never miss sitting in front of a TV every Friday night (at 9pm!) no matter what other events were planned? God, I even remember the big hullabaloo there was over the show's damn timeslot. Friday nights used to be one of the worst nights for television there was, being a big "date night" when most people went out instead of staying home. But the X-Files blew the competition out of the water, attracting record audiences and starting the trend of TGIF ratings-winners. Man, it really was a landmark show, wasn't it?

But now I get to relive that excitement and investment all over again. Rediscover what it is that made me fall in love with Mulder and Scully and Skinner and all their adventures. Recapture the passion and joy that sucked me in so inescapably that I'm still going strong even over a decade later.

And I gotta say, I'm having a lot of FUN doing it! :D




P.S. Special thank you to Red Wolf, for taking me by the proverbial hand and welcoming me into the world of fandom way back in 1996. I owe so much to you because of your kindness and generosity with a young, impressionable teenager all those years ago. Especially since I, like the foolish newbie I was, forced you to put with my very own regrettable Mary-Sue. (Sorry about that, btw!) Thinking back, your patience and forbearance in dealing with my first tentative forays are what gave me the courage to continue, starting me down the path I've been happily loving for 12 years and counting. I can't thank you enough for what you first did, and have continued to do for me ever since. Thank you! ::slobbers you with kisses::

P.P.S. Handkerchief? :)

I have a new car! Signed, sealed, and uh... picked up. :)

2009 Ford Focus, fully loaded. Pretty metallic blue. And thanks to my tough negotiator father, bought for a good $3000 less than the dealer's asking price. (Which, conveniently, put it nicely into my budget level. :P)

I was looking and dithering between a Toyota Corolla and a Honda Civic, which are both equally nice cars. But they had a few small things about them I wasn't completely comfortable with, things which are minor in the grand scheme, but kept holding me back. The Ford, while not as dependable a brand, had no features I didn't like. Plus it cost a heck of a lot less!

And best yet, the shitty-ass bucket-o-crap Chrysler is GONE! YAY!

Hmm... I may have to change the name of my tag. Hopefully, I won't be having anymore "car woes" for many years to come. ::crosses fingers::

Thank you to everyone who commented on my meta question yesterday! There was no easy answer, but it sure did give me a lot to think about. And isn't that the what's important anyway? :)

Thanks!

Question: Why don't we have a "pre-het" category?

I mean, if in a story two male (or two female) characters flirt and show a clear undertone of sexual or romantic attraction, the story is not listed as being Gen. It's called pre-slash, because while there is no overt kissing or sex, the inference is obvious that two same sex characters either wish to or will get together non-platonically at some point after the fic.

So how come stories in which two heterosexual characters flirt/exhibit desire but don't actually kiss 'on-screen' are still considered Gen?

Why aren't they pre-het?

Why is there that unconscious inference that the presence of heterosexual relationships don't violate General fiction's standard clause of "no sex or romance" but inferred homosexual relationships do?

ETA Underlying Question: What makes a story Gen?

~*~*~*~

This meta question is brought to you by a reader who's had to stop reading far too many so-called "gen" fics because of unexpected pushing of a disliked het 'ship. (Even if nothing physically happens, the constant presence of the unwanted 'ship hovering over every action and character development never fails to completely ruin an otherwise fine story. It's very disappointing, actually.)

Please, if you have any insight into this, please comment! I'm honestly curious to know why this situation exists, and why it's considered acceptable by... well, pretty much everyone. I don't think I've ever seen this question raised before, in any fandom. I'm not ashamed to admit this puzzles me.

Thank you,
Moon.

ETA: Just in case, please note that my replies to your comments are NOT arguments -- just further questions. I'm simply, honestly, curious about this issue. I just want to know. Please, feel free to say anything you think or feel! The more input, the better the discussion! Thank you!

So, CERN's Large Hadron Collider was successfully turned on without sucking the world into a black hole. Yay, science!

And then I discovered that the internet really is the best. thing. ever!

Don't know what the LHC is all about or how it works? Check out this very clever, and very amusing Rap of Physics for a full and complete explanation!



Still worried about the End of the World?

CLICK HERE --> http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

or HERE --> http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/

And don't forget to check out the Page Source code of both sites for the greatest amusement value! XD

ETA: IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER!

The io9's Large Hadron Kegger party has proposed a Large Hadron Collider Drinking Game. Score!

OMG! What the hell happened to del.icio.us?! Take it back! It's ugly and messy and what the hell did you do to my nice neat organization?

ARGH!

EDIT: Man, I hadn't even noticed they'd changed the domain name until I got into the forums (to complain about the bad points of the new layout - ie: pretty much everything!). Am I the only one who liked the uniqueness and cleverness of Delicious' previous name? The periods breaking it up made it seem techno-savvy and geek-friendly. Now it sounds like something made for teenage girls to squee in. :(

After almost three years to the day, I've finally updated my website. Gave it a facelift, a simple redesign, updated some links, and got around to adding the few fics I'd written and only previously posted to LJ.

Also updated the list of Fanfiction Terminology, which was pretty much the impetus to redo the site. It's actually pretty comprehensive now, I'd say, but if anyone spots a missing word, I'd appreciate a heads up.

Thanks.

It's 2:45am. I got up to go to the bathroom. Now I'm up for good. Wanna know why?

Because I just saw three -- not one, not two, but THREE -- of the biggest fucking spiders I've ever seen outside of a zoo. ::shudders::

Now, normally, I like spiders. I think they're generally cute and very useful animals, and will usually just pick them up and move them outside if I see any. But these things? Holy shit, I've never seen any spider this big in a house before. Seeing three of them on the walls and floor of my bathroom at three in the morning? Yeah, so not going back to sleep now. Gah!

Does Alberta have tarantulas, I wonder? They could have been baby ones. They were about 2½-3 inches in diameter and very, very hairy. Like, I could see all the individual hairs lining their abdomens and legs. It also looked like they only had two eyes, facing frontwards, instead of the typical tiny eight. And their fangs! ::shivers:: I am not ashamed to admit that I startled like a shying horse and nearing ran away before I screwed up my courage, gathered a handful of toilet paper, and squished the hell out of those bastards. (I couldn't imagine leaving them to roam the house freely. God, what if I'd woken up to find one in my bedroom? On my bed, for god's sake! Nuh huh, much as hate killing anything not a mosquito, those things had to go!)

Maybe if I lived somewhere like Australia I'd be used to sharing my home with giant-assed spiders, but in Canada? Where the average spider is generally smaller than a fingertip and the big ones get compared to nickels and, maybe if they're really big, quarters? These guys, to which I cannot even think of an appropriate comparison to demonstrate their sheer size? Not so much, no.

::full body shake:: Man, I'm still creeped out.

...

...

Coffee, tea, other stimulus of choice, anyone? Just me then? Okie-dokie! See ya in the morning! (I'll be the jittery one.)

ETA: They were apparently Giant House Spiders, a relative of the more common nickel-sized fellows I'm used to. Totally harmless, but rather startling nonetheless.

Not because the show is clever or amazing or even all that good, because it and ALL OF ITS FANS are totally, completely, inescapably batshit insane -- we're like the Evil Blackhole of DOOOOM and there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do to get away from it! Mwuahahahahahaha! *eg*

What brought this up, you might ask. (Or not, but let's pretend... :P)

Sam the Storyteller (aka the brilliant copperbadge of Harry Potter and, more recently, Torchwood fame) finally got sick and tired off all annoying pokes and prods his massive and massively insane readership have thrown at him to give in to the lure and watch Stargate: Atlantis.

So he did.

Over about a three week period, Sam decided he was gonna bite the bullet and kick SGA's ass. He was gonna defeat that show -- he was gonna force himself to watch it and not break down crying from the pain. He was strong, he survived HBP and DH; if he could do that, he could do anything! Right? Right! So Sam screwed up his courage, sharpened his snark and rapier sarcastic wit, and practically built "whole disbelief mobiles in the quest to suspend it" and mainlined SGA like it was coke and the cops were busting down the door. And like the best crack it is... it fucked him up gooooood! ROFLMAO!

He HATES the show! Thinks it's stupid and stupidly plotted and stupidly acted and OMG the characters are just too stupid and slow and how do they possibly keep surviving*?!

*Slightly paraphrased from his brilliant and hilarious Sam's Three Things recap of all four seasons, which actually worked out to about 216 things and a rather large amount of lost sanity -- but with really pithy titles!) Go, read, snark and snicker now!

And then, and I have to quote because this is just too damned perfect:

"Wait, did I forget something? Oh yeah. I wrote fanfic. THE HELL WITH YOU ALL."

Sam wrote over 60,000 words of fanfiction for a show he doesn't even like in less than three weeks! And it's good! Not just good, but fricken AWESOME!

This?! This is why you just gotta love that fandom! Because even when the show is so stupid it burns, and the fan wankery is so annoying it makes you long for JK Rowling to write another goddamned book just so you don't poke your own eyes out, it can still cause something like this. It can inspire a guy -- a guy who strongly, categorically dislikes this show with every fibre of his being -- into writing beautiful, funny, angsty painful NOVELS that you just can't put down because they are too strangely, oddly compelling. No matter how horrible and wrong and OMGwhy they are.

Sam made a special comm entitled i_defeated_sga because, as he puts it, "he likes his irony blatant". ::snerk::

At the comm you can find:

Angles Thus And So: R. Weir/McKay (OH SO AWESOME AND INEVITABLE BAD AND WRONG), Sheppard/McKay. The city belongs to Sheppard and McKay, and the boys belong to Elizabeth -- especially Rodney. 4 chapters, 38,000 words.

Quis Custodies Ipsos Custodiet: PG, reasonably gen. Ianto neglected to introduce himself as he informed the Senior Staff Meeting that Atlantis was now under the jurisdiction of Torchwood, whatever Torchwood is. Obvs. crossover, based on my assertion that a team of reasonably intelligent fast-moving chimps could take Atlantis if they timed it right. One-off, 2,000 words.

The Difference Engine: R. Sheppard/McKay. John Sheppard died in Afghanistan, but as he's still walking around (thanks to a cybernetic brain and Rodney McKay's genius) he doesn't see a need to belabor the point. Could be considered AU, though I prefer to think of it as a series of missing scenes. 3 chapters plus epilogue, 20,000 words.


This fandom kills me, every time! ::is ded from the LOLs:: XD